“Dad, honest I did not pick up your nasal hair trimmer to attack my eyebrow.”
In 36 hours, my son took scissors at school and cut his hair really close to the scalp, tested his scissors that he took home on his pillow case, and tried out my nasal hair trimmer on his eyebrow. It is funny to me when colleagues at work tell me about the trouble their children invent. It makes me realize it is not that my kids do unusual things to find their way through the world. It is that they do so many, so often, and in such rapid fire ways. So my colleagues sometimes look at me like I have some sort of antidote because my kids still live despite having made crazy decisions. If I had that power, do you think my kids would still be making and remaking the same decisions? I mean O has now nut his hair to the scalp three times now at ages 3, 6, and now 8. It’s a good thing he looks good with a shaved head.
This same impulsive behavior that often makes me feel as if my hair is falling out when O is hyper every night at 7:30 to 9, also leads to some very touching, heart felt moments of empathy. Last week after talking about how A could only eat peanut butter sandwiches every day because we had to limit her food, O decided that was all he would make himself for lunch. That way A would not feel alone in not being allowed to have different lunches like her friends have. I think these moments are golden.
I just wish we had a few less moments like last night when O came home from a birthday party A left because she didn’t want to watch everyone else eat pizza and cake. O came home and said, “A, you should have been there. We had pizza and great cake! It was awesome.” I think the head-slap emoticon was meant for those moments. I wonder how many more generations will enjoy newspaper comics. I love seeing my kids read for fun.
A Dog’s secret to a long happy life…play hard and find a good teddy bear with whom to sleep. Could it be that simple?
Do Numbers Lie or mislead? I suspect we just read into them what we expect “truth” to be.
When I started as a Survey Program Analyst almost 16 years ago, I remember working on some politically sensitive data. My boss said in a somewhat cynical tone, “Tell me what you want to prove, and I can find the statistic to ‘prove’ you correct.” Since then, I have enjoyed running across those statistics which can be used for either side of a disagreement as “proof.”
I was at a healthcare bazaar at my work last week where different supplier came to sell their services. There were insurance companies hoping employees would switch to their insurance or perhaps sign up for the first time. As I walked around, I watched their interest in selling to me predictably fade quickly with the mention of my MS. It was like the Soup Nazi in Seinfeld, saying “No long term care insurance for you.”
I get it. Still, I did have some interesting conversations there. It is enlightening to see how caught up in rosy narratives we become when faced with numbers that may say what we want to hear. One of the employee assistance plan workers told me the story of one of his friend being diagnosed with untreatable cancer. The doctor told him and his family to do what they can to make the patient happy because studies show “Happier sick people live longer.” The worker and family took this to mean if they can keep the patient happy he might beat the cancer. This narrative assigned to the facts of less happy people dying quicker gave them power over that truth which they would otherwise be forced to just endure.
I guess I was a Debby Downer, because I pointed out the other “obvious” to me possible explanation for the numbers. Sometimes being really sick and dying is just miserable. Perhaps some of those unhappy people were unhappy because their illness was so miserable to endure, and it was killing them whether they were happy or not? Without knowing what made the people in the study unhappy, it is hard to say why the unhappy people died quicker.
To my, ignorant of the individual facts mind, the narrative where sick unhappy people die sooner than happier ones, suggests a bleaker mindset closer to death. This seems more plausible than healing by positive thinking. I think about the symptoms I am to watch for as a JCV positive patient taking Tysabri. I am supposed to watch for down turns in my mood because they could be a harbinger of PML. Will my happiness ward off PML or is will a darker mood be a canary in the mine?
Maybe I should worry that mind so readily dismisses my mood as a cause of my body worsening. Perhaps I am already doomed.
Of course, I have few objections if my family and friends want to make me happier all the time so I can live longer. Maybe I should start an Emotional Go Fund Me and see how much positive energy is directed my way?
The happier patient population living longer could also be a result of the body having to spend less energy enduring symptoms. I know my symptoms are worse when I am stressed. Of course I also stress over increases in symptoms. I will concede it is plausible that happier patients live longer, but which is the cause and which is the effect in the relationship between happiness and long life is undetermined in my mind. One happy bear scout
